Rachel and Greg first met while working at Heavenly Mountain Resort but actually overlapped living in Breckenridge, Colorado, for one weekend before she moved away. “We attended the same beer festival but did not meet until a year later in Lake Tahoe,” she says.

Fortunately, ski towns are small worlds and the two reconnected and began a wintry romance. A couple of seasons ago, they planned on going skiing like they do every weekend, but because of weather they decided to go on a walk with their dog Lola instead. “We walked down to the beach and could see the storm coming in across the lake,” remembers Rachel. “We were throwing rocks into the water and then Greg got down on one knee with a stunning ring and asked, ‘Will you be my forever?’” She found out later that he planned to propose on the mountain, but because she didn’t want to go skiing that day, he improvised. “He was so calm, I didn’t suspect anything,” she says.

Planning the wedding, they didn’t look further than their home of Lake Tahoe. “We love the area and wanted to share it with our friends and family,” the bride says.

“Since we were getting married in Lake Tahoe, we felt like it was more of a backyard/hometown wedding versus a destination wedding.”

For their very personal ceremony, the couple wrote the vows and script and asked Rachel’s uncle to officiate. “My uncle Rich had asked each of our parents to write about the significance of marriage,” notes Rachel of one special surprise moment. “Uncle Rich then read their comments during the ceremony.”

At the reception, the happy couple sat at a long table surrounded by their immediate families. “Family is really important to us, and we love our family dinners,” says Rachel. “It made perfect sense to us to have our closest loved ones at the dinner table with us for our first meal as Mr. and Mrs.”

During the brides’s father’s speech, he opened a bottle of champagne with a saber and poured glasses for everyone at the head table. In another creative moment, the DJ made of game of calling tables to the buffet. “Each table nominated a captain, and she (Kami from Sound Image Entertainment) would ask trivia questions about us or scavenger hunt questions, like find an out-of-state license,” recalls the bride. “It made a typically boring time waiting for food super fun and engaging.”

But of all the festivities that day, the bride still remembers that amazing feeling walking out of the bridal tent and down the aisle with her dad. “I was looking down at the beach with all of our favorite people sitting there to celebrate us,” she says. “And seeing Greg, my soon-to-be husband, standing at the end of the aisle with tears in his eyes (he said he wasn’t going to cry, that he’s ‘not a crier’)…my heart was beating fast, and I don’t think my smile could have gotten any bigger.” 

—Darren Elms